


Shortest Day, Longest Night

by perryvic, Zaganthi (Caffiends)



Category: Constantine (2005)
Genre: Yuletide Treat, not quite the version you asked for, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 03:38:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5524016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perryvic/pseuds/perryvic, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caffiends/pseuds/Zaganthi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The longest night was a night when the veil between world wore thin like a worried blanket, rubbed with the friction of holiday celebrations and boozey ruminations on what might have been and what never ever fucking was going to be. It was a time to put things to rest, to close doors and bask in that, though humanity squandered that by prying at the edges of doors instead with greedy fingers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shortest Day, Longest Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Galadriel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galadriel/gifts).



> Really loved your prompt, sorry we're more familiar with the movie than the new tv show, but! It still works. If you tilt your head a little

The longest night was a night when the veil between world wore thin like a worried blanket, rubbed with the friction of holiday celebrations and boozy ruminations on what might have been and what never ever fucking was going to be. It was a time to put things to rest, to close doors and bask in that, though humanity squandered that by prying at the edges of doors instead with greedy fingers.

Immersed as he was the seedy underside of magic, there were certain things their community just did as if it was in the blood and bone. There would be warriors of light and darkness alike lighting candles, speaking the names of the dead, feasting with comrades, standing vigil in the darkness. In some areas, sacrifices would be made, blood spilled on stone so the sun would rise and the balance be restored.

For John, it seemed inevitable that grey should seek out grey.

He was muddy, muddy by accident, and the accident was that he did good things and bad things in equal turn. Going to Papa Midnite, a more structured Grey... Made sense.

He wouldn't be at the surface of the club, not tonight. There would be celebrations there, but it was easy for them to clash. No, he knew where Papa Midnite would be, in his private chambers, secret and hidden away even deeper than his working office. It was a strange gesture of trust that he even knew about it, John knew that much. He ignored the frenetic energy in the bar, used the sigil unlock on the office door finding it empty as he expected and then he looked to see if he could find the hidden entrance.

Pressed his fingers against walls, reaching down, fingers turned like he saw Papa Midnite move, cupping motion and fingers pressing at, and there it was, the feeling of the wall giving way.

The room was lit by fire light, flickering and casting dancing shadows and Papa Midnite was sitting there, staring into the fire with solemn intensity.

"Only you would come here on this night. " He glanced up at him. "But are you here for favours, or as John."

"As John." He shrugged out of his trench coat, and stopped inside the threshold to toe off his shoes. "This isn't a night to be greedy."

"No." Papa Midnite exhaled and John saw him take off one of his principal amulets of power. "It becomes harder and harder to become Jack again." He didn't ask about a drink, just poured one out for him, and then pour a generous shot onto the flames, making them dance. He didn't explain, but he didn't have to. A gift to the spirits.

They were so close to crossing over, that the least they could do was give them a that. "I miss when I could still find myself."

"Bullshit," voodoo master said. "You just become more and more yourself. You just can't see it for looking." He swigged some of his own drink. "Solstice night. Sol invictus, the night of the unconquered sun. Dark and light battling it out so the balance remains."

"The sun will grow in power and push out the dark until we all think we're going to burn, and the dark creeps back, nips at its heels, gains strength. Too much of either, and we have nothing. The world in ruins." He sat cross legged beside the immortal man.

"Neutrality. The place where we exist." Papa Midnite took a drag on his cigarette and let the smoke curl into interesting patterns as he let it escape. "So many magics, so many cultures turn to yuletide as something ingrained. Watching vigil against the darkness, lighting their own spark."

He was half tempted to bum one off of Papa Midnite, just because. "And here we are. Doing the same."

"Did you bring a list of the names of the dead you have lost this year, or are we going to be here all night as you speak their names?" Papa Midnite asked dryly

He licked his bottom lip. "Couple of notepad sheets. I'm learning to organize."

"Give them to me." Papa Midnite requested. "Mine I have done. The fire has taken their names."

It took a minute to wrestle them out of his pocket, unfolding them carefully smoothing the paper before handing it over with reverence.

"Death likes to dance with Constantine," he said taking them. He held them up. "On this longest night, let not the names of those lost to us be forgotten. Death may have taken their spirit to darkness, but their names shall be remembered in the light. Accept our remembrance."

He blew on the note papers and they swirled themselves over the lit fire catching fire mid air, the sparks and embers taking the shapes of beasts and spirits that symbolised the dead.

He wondered who, in passing, was the bright little flame that dared to be a Phoenix. No one came to mind, and it left him a little cold to not remember. "Thank you."

Papa Midnite nodded. "So. All there is now is the fire and us… John. Drink. Speak, or whatever else comes to mind."

"Start with a drink." And talk. Few people in their community knew each other in a calm, social way, and the fire needed to stay tended until the dawn came. It was a lonely task.

Rum this time was poured, and pushed towards him. "Drink I can do. Some of the finest for you John." Papa Midnite smiled. "For your entertaining chaos. How you managed to piss off quite so many on both sides speaks of some sort of genius."

"I pissed off an old jaguar god last month. I'm branching out to pissing off whole new pantheons," he joked, taking a slow sip.

Papa Midnite roared with laughter. "Careful John, Aztec gods are blood magic. Hearts, bodies, blood, twisting time and destroying worlds. No pussy cats for you to pet. Was it the Smoking Mirror?"

"What's left of him. Even gods go mad." If nothing else, he'd given his partner for the night a good laugh. "Claimed amnesia, he was hunting sacrifices, it was a great chase."

"Trickster gods are going to curse your name," Papa Midnite said, blowing smoke rings. "Even empty ones."

"The gods or my name?" He quipped back.

"The Smoking Mirror had 400 children," Papa Midnite said with wicked smile of amusement.. "Perhaps you might want to clear your calendar of appointments for the next year."

He half sputtered on his drink. "Not sure any of them'd be bothered to kiss his ass goodbye."

The other man was grinning in dark amusement. "Just in case, watch out for anyone with too few vowels in their names."

"Or claws. The claws are a pretty good give away." He fished a cigarette from his pocket. It was comfortable, to sit side by side with a fellow warrior.

"I once met a witch doctor from Africa who had swallowed a leopard spirit. Stupid bastard," Papa Midnite mused. "Thought he could out- Obeah me."

"So tell me how you used the leopard spirit against him." Or some similar come-uppance, because Papa Midnite was sitting there as proof of his victory.

He blew out smoke, tossing more fuel on the fire. "Leopard spirits, real ones are solitary. They don't have loyalty. He thought I would have to fight the claws to beat him. All I had to do was snap the leash and watch him be shredded from the inside out."

John had seen people eaten out from the inside by their avarice or their weakness, and that was the problem with inviting things into you. "You miss those days, guardian."

"Sometimes. I started being focused on power. There is a lure to the fight, but I was young and stupid too many times. I've invited as much darkness to myself as you have, and more," Papa Midnite said. "Thought I was clever and suffered for it."

"I still think I'm clever. Maybe one day I'll learn." But cocky, once he'd felt undefeatable, immortal, and that didn't last any longer.

"Start to see right," the other man advised. "Stop seeing what you expect to see. You might live longer. I still can't believe you first saw me in a fucking grass skirt and top hat. You might as well have been singing Live and Let Die at me."

"That's a very good song," John scoffed, leaning forward to light his cigarette off a bit of ember that sparked off from the fire.

"You didn't even check for a suggestion spell." He knocked back his drink. "You're a trouble magnet."

"Never been anything else." He smiled when he said it, taking a draw on his cigarette.

"True enough. And yet I still let you into my house," Papa Midnite said thoughtfully topping up his drink. "And I haven't killed you yet."

"So that must make you trouble," he hazarded, taking a careful sip.

The other man chuckled. "You have no idea. I have lived in trouble."

"Close enough. We all got here somehow." It was a winding road, and all John knew was a by about his sister being a power funnel, once upon a time.

"By being sold to the devil," Papa Midnite exhaled smoke. "Or in my case, crossing the wrong people."

"And now you maintain the balance. if none of this had happened, what do you think you'd be doing?" He often wonder that, if there was life is a normal person that was even possible.

"I would probably be dead." He grinned. "I was born a long time ago after all. That or taking some sweet thing home for an evenings entertainment."

"I wanted to be a schoolteacher briefly. I think, if I had been this way, I'd have a dog and two kids and the wife, and probably a midlife crisis to go with it." It was a foggy memory, something that had passed long ago.

"You think that vanilla lifestyle is for you? I heard about your...experiments on assignment." He chuckled little.

"Nope. I just think I might have fallen into that trap, because it was easy, and because I could choose easy. It would've chafed me, and I would've ruined lives in mundane boring ways, like everyone else does." He took a slow draw smoky air into his mouth, and held it before blowing it out in a ring. "And I've enjoyed every experiments I've ever done."

"All of them?" Papa Midnite. "Even that club where you went undercover? Did you have a taste for that?"

He laughed. "Are you trying to shame me? Won't work. I liked that, too. Humans, people underestimate how attractive *desire* is."

"Not shame you, just interested in what is desire and what was...work." He tossed more rum on the fire in a casual movement.

"I think you said it best. I become more myself as time wears on." He shifted a little closer. Because the fire felt good.

"So yourself is interested in sex with everything." Papa Midnite stated. "There's a life goal I could get behind."

"I've met some very gorgeous people in my life. And creatures. Why say no?" And he's dated a women who'd become moulded into her house, corrupted by sleep dust, and there were so many other fully sentient beings out there who were more attractive.

"Why indeed?" Papa Midnite was giving him a look that he didn't usually associate with him. They were usually concerned with sizing each other up in a completely different way.

This was the tenor of something John could follow, but he half wanted to ask Midnite if he was having him on. He moved his cigarette away, cocking an eyebrow at the other man.

"There are other ways to celebrate the return of life," the other man drawled. "I'm just..saying."

"I get the gist." He leaned in, taking the risk that the obvious answer was the right one. Just then, they were both representative of the balance, and people, neither of them actively carrying their grudges that later they would pick up and rearm themselves with.

"That might just be the first time," he replied his dark eyes fixed on him as he leaned in as well. He just smiled and then took hold of John pulling in to a kiss.

He tasted like smoke and rum and heat, and John found himself leaning in, reaching for Midnite's shoulders.

It seemed like they were going to do this, some sort of strange supernatural evolution from fighting with magic, or snarking at each other. He broke the kiss, giving a half smile. "Not bad John. Not as sloppy as your spellwork would suggest."

"Fast and loose one way doesn't mean bad in a better context." He smirked back, and shifted to try to push Midnite to lay on the floor.

"Well considering the circumstances, you should call me ...Jack," Midnite said as he went down. The fire flared near them, the floor covered with a thick plush rug.

"Jack." He smirked again, tasting it in his mouth as he leaned down for another kiss. Two first names for the night, and no imposing monikers.

Constantine was hung up with his trench coat, and Papa Midnite, with his amulets. It wasn't the strangest thing they had ever done but it was up there.

He should be looking for a trap, but this was neutral ground. Mid..Jack would not compromise the rules of his own House.

A neutral ground and a neutral balanced night... No better time in the universe to try it, so he leaned back in to keep kissing Jack and see where it went.

At least with it being the longest night, time was something they both had.


End file.
